Sunday, January 1, 2012

Gypsy: the final chapter

Hope everyone had a great New Year! We had friends and family over for a little celebrating, game playing, and eating of scrumptious food night. Most of the kids even stayed awake till midnight to watch the ball drop in Time Square...of course the 4 year old was leading the pack since she loved the fact that no one told her she should go to bed at any time during the night.

A comment was posted this morning about Junk Market from yesterdays post. They do still have some events which you can find out about here. I don't know how big they are but the wares seem well curated. Looks like the current events for 2012 take place in Long Lake, MN which is where Junk Market is based...again, about 20 miles outside of Minneapolis/St Paul. Thanks for the updated information.

Well, enough about that, let's move on to the very last chapter of Gypsy.

Debbie's beautiful post office that sits in her living room now.

I refused to leave the store till she bought it. One of us had to go home with it!

Oh, Diane's...old staple in our shopping trips. Why, oh why did you have to go away? We could always find some great, kooky crafting supplies in your "hotter than hell" warehouse. Sweating as we walked the rows and rows of boxes...you never know what you might find...ribbon, googlie eyes, tiny flowers, metal charms...all gone. Darn economy!

This is a pre-made long envelope (4 x 9 5/8") that is folded over and held closed with an arrow turn. There is a pocket on the outside with a tag in it...

As well as a pocket on the inside that was created by sewing the envelope closed 6" from the punched edge. That stitching line makes your fold secure and the contents of the pocket stay in the top half of the envelope. The blue paper is the back of a piece of Monopoly money that I stitched into the the same seam. The side that you cannot see is the where I wrote the journaling.

On one of our trips we dyed buttons and tags with RIT dye (thanks Ann for the lesson). This was a good place to keep some small samples from that day.

The reason I stitched the envelope at 6" from the punch edge is so I could add a photo to the backside of the brown envelope in the 4 x 6" space.

Always love a page with fold out flaps. Super easy to do.

Cut two long strips of cardstock to fit your page.

Score 1/2" from an edge.

Fold at score mark (this will be the hinge for the fold out).

Add glue to the 1/2" edge and add to book page. Repeat for the other side.

Cover up the seams with the main paper, which in this case is black and white stripes.

This is our very first picture we had taken together. I believe we were at a thrift shop in Payson, Arizona and this green and gold velvet couch was just sitting out in the hot sun waiting for someone to take it home. We didn't buy it, but it was a great place to take a picture.

This might be a bit easier to read than trying to read it in the last picture.

I didn't cover the back of the book, I just left the black book board and added this sticker, "Dedicated to: Ann, Ellen, Deb and Patty...great gypsy friends".

Well, that's the end of the book. Love sharing it with you since it is near and dear to my heart.

I have finished 2 1/2 of my first 3 gypsy projects that have to be turned in...we all got an extension till Tuesday because of the Holiday. That doesn't happen too often!

But still, so many things on my list to complete before the CHA at the end of the month...only 4 WEEKS away!

This is such a super busy, creative time of year for us...making new samples, seeing all the new samples from the rest of the 7gypsies design team, putting the booth together, gathering the needed supplies...let's just say I had to get out a large dry erase marker board we use for Pictionary to make a huge priority list of projects and deadlines that need to be completed. The great thing is that it always works out no matter the stress of getting to the end result.

Happy New Year, Paula and Deb! You gypsy girls are truly my inspiration. I live in Minneapolis (actually Lakeville- a suburb-20 minutes south of the Mall of America) and I have been scrapbooking (collecting supplies) for years but only in the past maybe 4 years have I decided that I like Junk and I never knew the Junk Market existed so close to my house until it changed to Junk Bonanza and I only heard about that because of Creative Connection, which I only heard about by chance a week before the event in 2010 while at Spark in Utah sitting next to Kim, one of the gals from DIY Dish---so my love affair with Junk is very belated in my quest of collecting. In 2012 I am actually going to create stuff with my collections and I'm giving myself permission to use my paper stash instead of saving it for who knows what.

Good luck with the CHA prep--wow this past year certainly went fast--seems like I was just watching sneak peaks for CHA winter----speaking of which can't wait for the 7Gypsies sneaks to begin--love, love, love your stuff and what you create with it.

Thanks for sharing your book, Paula---love all the little surprises like the foldouts and pockets and transparencies. Wow did I leave a long comment--TTFN, Elise in MN

Paula, thanks for sharing your gypsy journal. Sounds like the 5 of you have a ball when you get together, and this is such a wonderful way to record some of those times. I especially love all the pockets, fold-outs, tags, transparancies, & lovely bits & pieces you've used.

Dear Paula and Deb, just want to say how much I love you two. You are so helpful, inspiring, generous and encouraging. I feel like you are my best friends or next door neighbors. I hope your work for CHA goes smoothly and you both get oodles of enjoyment from it. Thanks for this great album of memories. I will be a "copy-cat" again.

Lucky Day...it's when you get the first parking space at a busy store or when you find the thing that you have been looking for forever or it's finding a friend when you weren't even looking for one. What a LUCKY day.